Copyright (c) 2002 William F. Harrison, M.D., FACOG -- all rights reserved
For more than 30 years, most American women and their families have enjoyed a degree of reproductive freedom never before known in recorded history. The American woman and her family, since Jan. 22, 1973, has been largely relieved of the burden of the birth of children for whom she is not emotionally or economically prepared, and of the dangers that calamitous pregnancies presented in the past in this country and which still persist, at least for the poor, in many parts of the world. Should President Geo. W. Bush and the Republican Congress achieve their stated goal of reversing Roe v. Wade, reproductive freedom is going to be severely restricted for many, and perhaps eventually for most, American women and their families. A majority of Americans under 40 have never known a world in which reproductive freedom was severely restricted - for safe, legal abortion has "always" been available to them should their contraceptive method fail (as happens well over 50% of the time for women seeking abortion), or should they or their sexual partner be lax in their use of contraceptives, or if problems develop during a planned pregnancy which makes continuation of the pregnancy untenable.
When Roe v. Wade first became the law of the land, it was celebrated by a large majority of our citizens, especially among those in the medical, legal and public health communities, as well as by a majority of mainline religious groups. In 1973, we were just emerging from a society in which for over a hundred years severe restrictions on reproductive freedom had resulted in the suffering of millions, and the deaths of thousands, of girls and women. The advent of sterile surgical techniques, antibiotics, improved anesthetics and blood transfusion - all available by or before 1945 - had made legal abortion much safer for women who underwent these procedures in this country and abroad. (Legal abortions were done for a variety of "legitimate" reasons - as defined in some states by hospital "abortion committees" - long before Roe v. Wade, but safe abortions were also available for less than "legitimate" reasons to the wealthy, the socially connected, and the medically sophisticated.) Even so, literally millions of children and women of families that did not fit these more fortunate profiles still suffered the awful effects of illegal abortions until the U.S. Supreme Court's Roe v. Wade decision granted reproductive freedom to all our citizens. Married couples were not granted even the freedom to use birth control methods in many states until after the Griswold v. Connecticut decision of 1965. And unmarried couples did not gain that freedom in those states until Eisenstadt v. Baird was handed down in 1972, only one year before Roe was decided. By 1973, for those who were aware of the terrible medical and social consequences of illegal abortion and the markedly improved safety of legal abortion, the debate about the morality of legal abortion was over. Just as pregnancy has only two possible outcomes: either spontaneous or elective abortion, or delivery, so elective abortion has only two possible routes: either it is legal, safe and available from qualified practitioners, or it is illegal and unsafe because of the absence of qualified medical facilities and personnel.
Abortion has been a fact of life for all of history. But unfortunately for those who in the past suffered, and those who, even today, experience the reality of illegal abortion and its horrendous aftermath, it has only been easily obtainable and safe for many, perhaps not even a majority, of the world's women and their families for a very few years.
We are told (and I have no reason to believe that this is untrue) that a majority of young people today feel that abortion should be heavily restricted, perhaps even unavailable. But young people have no memory of the desperate situations that existed and the horrors that awaited many girls and women - and their families - seeking reproductive freedom before the U.S. Supreme Court decisions of 1965,'72 and '73. As someone once said, "Those who do not remember history are destined to repeat it," which may be an optimistic paraphrase of Friedrich Hegel's thesis "...that people and governments never have learned anything from history, or acted on the principles deduced from it." How sad to think this may be true.
William F. Harrison, M.D., FACOG
Fayetteville Women's Clinic
1011 N. College Ave.
Fayetteville, AR 72701
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Copyright (c) 2002 William F. Harrison, M.D., FACOG -- all rights reserved
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Return to T.F.Barans' commentary: Women's Reproductive Self Determination